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DOI 10.12887/27-2014-2-106-13

Maciej T. KOCIUBA – Violence, according to René Girard: The Structure of Girard’s Theory and the Contexts of Its Reception

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The article focuses on an analysis of the complex aggravating determinants of the reception of René Girard’s theory. Among others, relevant cognitive factors are considered, such as those related to the untypical structure of the mimetic theory and its non-empirical nature. On the other hand, also social and ideological factors, the latter related to the standards set by political correctness, are scrutinized. All these determinants, which in the past affected the reception of René Girard’s theory, contributed to its numerous misapprehensions and false interpretations. However, the fact that it has been now absorbed by culture over a lengthy period of time, paired with Girard’s patience in popularizing his views, has contributed to the now prevailing opinion that his anthropological insight into the social and psychological mechanisms of violence is coherent and exhaustive.
The second part of the article includes a novel attempt to describe the fractal structure of Girard’s theory, manifested in its specific ability to combine a wide range of aspects of the reality it explains with the simplicity of its explanation mechanism (corresponding to the construction principle of a fractal geometry).
In an analysis of the formal qualities of Girard’s theory, efficiency of such concepts as iteration and self-similarity, used in the theory of chaos, is demonstrated.
If justifiable, the thesis that Girard’s theory exhibits certain qualities of a fractal structure may be considered as an indirect proof of the rootedness of this theory in the actual reality rather than its being a purely intellectual game.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords: René Girard, violence, mimetic theory, fractal, the Gospel, culture, cultural anthropoloy

Zakład Filozofii Kultury, Instytut Filozofii, Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii,
Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej,
plac Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
E-mail: Maciej.Kociuba@umcs.lublin.pl
Phone: +48 81 5375193

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» Kociuba.pdf

  1. ISSN 0860-8024
  4. DOI Prefix 10.12887